What if?
by VivianeAeryn
Summary: Finished.
1. Chapter 1

What if?  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summery: What if something went on more than was led to believe between Jesse and Winnie during the water scene? What if Winnie and her family went away for another reason? What if she went back to the spring?  
  
Note: Always happy to hear if I should quit while I'm ahead, so tell me if this sucks, but do it nicely or I'll have to go Hannibal on your ass. Oh yeah, I doing this from the movie version and seeing how they never said how much time passed, I'm thinking at least a month after they rescued May.  
  
***  
  
Winnie looked out the carriage window as she watched the scenery go by. Each passing mile made her heart ache; it made it ache so badly that she had to put a hand on her chest from time to time. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the padding of the seat and her mind was instantly filled with the images of her and Jesse and Mae and Tuck and even his sour older brother, gradually she fell asleep.  
  
Her mother looked across at her daughter and fought the tears she felt welling in her eyes. Still not over the mourning of her mother and now she had to deal with this. She didn't know what to do, except persuade her husband that they need to leave Treegap for a while. At least until it was over. Mrs. Foster heard her daughter moan and then she heard the name. It came out in a whisper "Jesse.." Her mother closed her eyes and a single tear slipped out.  
  
***  
  
Winnie rushed back to the pot she had been throwing up in for the last several hours since the steamer left for Rome. She wondered how long this was to go on before it quite, her mother told that it could sometimes last the whole time. She looked at the offending thing that caused her throw up, fish. She hated fish and she never liked to eat it but her mother instated that she eat some fish.  
  
She laid herself back into her bed and found herself wishing for Jesse. And Mae. As much as she loved her mother, she didn't have the instinctive maternal instincts that Mae had, her mother had a nanny for her before she was born and was only bothered when it was feeding time. She screwed her nose up at that thought, she made it seem like her mother couldn't been bothered by her.  
  
That wasn't the truth. Her mother was a good mother but she only started being her mother when she was at least ten and could take care of herself. She ignored the knock she heard at her door and went back to sleep.  
  
***  
  
"Miss? Miss, you need to wake up, everybody is departing." Winnie woke with a start and looked at the flight attendant in confusion until she remembered where she was. She noticed that the attendant was looking at her with concern. "Thank you. I'm sorry if we caused trouble." The lady gave her a kind smile and shook her head. " Don't worry about it. There is someone like you on every flight."  
  
Winnie gave a weak smile. No matter how longed she lived she would never be used to this new technology. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that humans would be able to fly like birds. She turned to the person next to her and gazed with affection at the face. She shook her shoulder; "Sweetie? Come on its time to get off...Ow!" The last part woke up her companion when she saw Winnie looking in annoyance at a man that was too large for the walkways of a plane.  
  
" You okay?" she asked Winnie in concern. She nodded her head and reached above her for the bag that was in the overhead compartment. Winnie looked to her companion and asked her if she was ready. She nodded and watched Winnie pull out little music box and started playing song that she never knew that name of but remembered it well. It was what put her to sleep as a baby. Winnie said that the tune was from time in her girlhood and that it always calmed her.  
  
They walked through the airport terminal and headed for baggage claim. Or what one of her friend's back in LA used to say " Its Hell on earth. I'm telling you if you ever want to do something bad just go to the airport and wait at the baggage claim. Then just imagine that for an eternity."  
  
After fifteen minutes of looking at luggage that looked the same they finally came across theirs and head for the shuttle that would take them to car rental and from the car rental they would make their way to Winnie's home town, Treegap.  
  
***  
  
Well, do you like it? Come on, hit the review button and tell me seriously. 


	2. Chapter 2

What if?  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summery: What if something went on more than was led to believe between Jesse and Winnie during the water scene? What if Winnie and her family went away for another reason? What if she went back to the spring?  
  
Disclaimer: (snorts) oh yeah, I own them, I also happen to be the reincarnation of Nerfertiri and Nefertiti. Not.  
  
Note: Always happy to hear if I should quit while I'm ahead, so tell me if this sucks, but do it nicely or I'll have to go Hannibal on your ass. Oh yeah, I doing this from the movie version and seeing how they never said how much time passed, I'm thinking at least a month after they rescued Mae.  
  
Oh yeah, I this story confuses any of you please let me know, and I'll do something, I don't know what but I'll try. Also if you happen to be one of the people who like to work the math on the years in movies or fics, I think I'm either a year or a couple of months off. Because by the time Winnie had Mae she had to be sixteen, so if the math is off please excuse it.  
  
***  
  
"Mom?" She looked at Winnie worry in her eyes. She knew this would be hard for her mother, the last time she had been in Treegap, she was fifteen and she was at least a month pregnant with her. And said mother was looking out the shuttle window on the way to the car rental place. She had returned to reading her book when she decided to ask, or attempt to ask her a question.  
  
"Mom? Why was it so important for us to return here?" She was going to keep bugging her until she got an answer but she saw Winnie's hand move and then she saw the flash of silver. She reached over and removed the object form her mother's hand. It was the flask that held the water, the spring water. She remembered when she learned about the water; she was fifteen years old, the same age as her mother when she learned about the spring form her father, Jesse.  
  
She remembered that day as if it were yesterday, on her birthday that was a few months before the Depression.  
  
***  
  
March 17, 1929 New York  
  
She looked around at the mess that her friends had left behind when the party was over. She ran a hand through her dark bob and went to find her mother to see if she needed help. She saw her mother sitting on the window seat with a frown and a scared look on her face.  
  
She grabbed the strand of pearls that she wore and twisted them around her hand and then untangled her hand and started to swing them. She didn't like that look, Winnie had been wearing a worried look on her face for a couple of days and she didn't know if it had to do with the rumors about the stock market or what. They didn't have anything in the Market but from what she overheard it could be nasty for the rest of America.  
  
She shrugged her young shoulders, well its what you get if you decided not to do right with you work. She sat down next to her mother and pulled the pearls off and started lacing them through her fingers. "Momma?" She asked. She watched as Winnie's big blue eyes made the trek to her face and a small smile broke out causing her eyes to crinkle on the edges.  
  
"You look like your father." She said quietly. She looked at her mother in surprise. Her mother barley talked about her father, but when she did she always said that he had to leave for his safety and hers. And that she loved him very much and she still did. But she hardly ever said things like that. One time she had asked if she had any of her father in her, Winnie had left the room with tears gathering in her eyes.  
  
"Do you remember that I told you that your father left for his safety?" She nodded. Winnie continued, " Do you ever wonder where you got your name form?" This time she nodded her head quickly. Winnie always said she was named after someone she loved and looked after like a mother. " I named you after your father's mother, her name is Mae Tuck." Mae felt happiness in her heart. Her mother was finally opening up about who her family is or was.  
  
Winnie took a deep breath; she didn't know how to explain it to her daughter without her sounding like a lunatic. Winnie took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes and looked into her daughter's eyes, eyes so much like hers. " When I turned fifteen I meet your father, in the woods behind my house..." Mae looked at her mother varying emotions crossing her face make it hard for her mother to read her face. Like Miles, she thought wistfully.  
  
" They can't die? They just live forever?" Mae asked, she looked skeptical. Everybody dies; the preacher said so, the Bible said so and now she was learning that her father and his family would get to live forever and never die. "Yes. When I found out that I was going to have you I went back to the spring. And with me I brought one of my father's flasks and I filled it with the spring water. On my eighteenth birthday I drank the water." Winnie waited for her daughter's reaction.  
  
" You drank the water? Why?!" Mae was more than upset down she was furious. Her mind was going all over the place, that was not the question she wanted to ask but well what are you gonna do? Her mother had kept it a secret, her father, her uncle and her grandparents a secret and she even kept the spring a secret. She looked up at her daughter her heart in her eyes as she answered. "Because, I have to walk the Eiffel Tower with him and I told him that I wanted to be with him forever. Honey, I tired over the years to get over him, I even dated a few times to see if I could fall in love with them and I can't."  
  
She watched her mother stand up, her dress white and sparkly styled in the latest fashion, she saw her mother bring up her hand to her head all her bracelets making a loud metallic sound as they hit each other. " Any way, that was not the reason I told you this story, the reason I told you is because I want to give you the same choice that I had. Your fifteen now and I want to give you the option of drinking the water, and when your turn eighteen I want you to give me your answer."  
  
***  
  
Mae now drove the rental car to the hotel, as her mother was still distant. It wouldn't last long, it never did. As they reached the hotel she turned on the radio and a song by Live came on, it was a good song she had heard before, it was called 'Forever May Not Be Long Enough'. Mae gave a silent snort at that; it fit her parents' situation really well.  
  
She looked over at her mother and realized that she had fallen asleep, Mae reached over and grabbed her mother's hand and held it tight. She prayed everything would be okay. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summery: Winnie and Mae go back to Treegap.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own a blessed thing except for the daughter. I made her up.  
  
Note: I can't remember if the dude had blue eyes or not so I said he did, let me know if I'm wrong. Also this chapter may not be suitable for young people or people who are offended by sexual or any related sexual content. I'm not real good writing about that stuff so it might not be that bad. I really should stick to what I know. ;P  
  
***  
  
She looked over at her mother and realized that she had fallen asleep, Mae reached over and grabbed her mother's hand and held it tight. She prayed everything would be okay.  
  
***  
  
While Mae was praying that everything would be okay, Winnie was dreaming of the day she was conceived. She knew without a doubt that her daughter had been made that day at the waterfall.  
  
She remembered when she jumped in and Jesse had taken her into his arms and held her as she floated on her back. She could feel him watching her without having to look at him. His gaze seemed to burn her skin and the cool water that washed over her made a wonderful sensation. Then somehow she found herself leaning against him as he held her like a new bride.  
  
She felt herself blushing just a little. Not only was she in her underclothes but she was being held by a strange man-child who she had no idea existed until what a day ago, a week ago? She didn't know, she had lost all track of time.  
  
She wanted to change her position and as she wrapped her legs around Jesse's waist her bottom came into contact with something that wasn't there before, or was and wasn't so prominent. She felt her face flush even more and she felt her heart quicken and she had a feeling, a feeling she never had before. It was making her insides feel all mushy and she unconsciously tightened her legs around his waist.  
  
She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and saw that his eyes seemed darker and it finally registered in her mind that he was standing stone still, the only thing moving was his chest. And that was because his breathing had turned ragged and his chest was heaving and he was trembling a little.  
  
His trembling and ragged breathing made her look on in alarm. " Jesse, are you okay? Are you sick?" she asked worriedly. She didn't know what was wrong with him, but Jesse knew what was wrong with himself. He lived in Paris for a while and he found himself a working girls project, she wanted to teach a young man to become a man.  
  
Well being stuck in a seventeen-year-old body had also stuck him with same hormones and well who was he to turn down a pretty woman's offer. And now he was feeling those same feelings he had whenever he meet a woman that he really liked. But he found himself wanting it different with Winnie.  
  
Winnie found herself verging on panic, he hadn't answered her and his eyes seemed to look wild like he had a fever and she didn't know what to do. Suddenly a gruff voice answered her and it took her a while to realized that it belonged to Jesse. " I'm fine. I think we should get out and go back." Winnie nodded in agreement as they made their way to the bank. " Yeah we should get back home soon, looks like its lunch time."  
  
Jesse was caught off guard when she said 'home' he couldn't believe that she referred to his home as her home and he was so lost in thought that he missed his footing and he slipped taking Winnie with him.  
  
He landed on his back with Winnie straddling him and without a thought flipped her over so that now it was he that was on top. And his face a few centimeters away from hers, he was so close that the tip of his nose touched hers and he could see flecks of dark blue in her eyes.  
  
Winnie started shifting around, she felt something between her thighs that kept poking her and as she kept moving she noticed that Jesse remained impassive. She moved her head and all of a sudden, her mouth was right under Jesse's mouth. She looked into his eyes, they looked like the dark blue flowers that she found growing in the woods, and they were a midnight blue with black in the middle.  
  
She felt his breath against her face as he gasped out her name. "Winnie" his voice sounded like he was longing for something she thought. It sounded heavy and breathless and full of longing. "Jesse?" she however knew that her voice had a question in it and she did. She didn't understand what was happening but she liking the feelings it gave her and she was a little scared to.  
  
The last thing she remembered was Jesse's mouth covering hers and the day becoming a blur. They never did make it back home for lunch.  
  
***  
  
The sound of a horn honking and squealing tires and the angry voice of her daughter jerked Winnie out of her sleep and dreams. " Yeah, up yours pal!" Mae screamed out the car window and gave the driver the universal sign for hating your driving.  
  
Winnie shook her head; Mae had adapted to the new century better than she did. Where Winnie was still a little on the reserved side, Mae was all for voicing her opinion. Well as Mae once said it was all about upbringing, She grew up in the age of innocence and Mae grew up in the speak easy era. A time when the drinking was out lawed and a mobster was her uncle, who helped take care of them because he found out she wasn't married.  
  
She looked at her daughter again. " What happened?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. " That sorry SOB had been riding my ass all the way here and when the other jerk in front of me stopped to quickly I had to slam on the brakes only idiot #1 realized it to late and fish tailed out into the other lane. As if it was my fault that he didn't know how to drive." She finished angrily.  
  
" Are you okay?" she had noticed the slight trembling in her daughters hands and realized it had been a really close one. " Yeah, I'll be fine. We're almost to the hotel." Winnie nodded her head and turned on the radio and searched for a station. She found a classical station to help sooth her daughter's battered nerves. There were many things that her and her daughter had in common and one of them was classical music having a calming affect on their nerves.  
  
***  
  
Well, how was that? Any good. Please let me know if you think differently. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summery: Winnie and Mae go back to Treegap.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own a blessed thing except for the daughter. I made her up.  
  
Note: Okay so people don't get confused, I'm going back and forth with the flashbacks. So they might be when she has the kid or when she doesn't. And half the stuff that is being written is being pulled out of a black hat so......  
  
Oh yeah remember this is the beginning of the 20th century that means five cents a day for working and boat loads of immigrants and those who could not get work because of idiots who refused to give them jobs.  
  
***  
  
They entered their hotel room and Winnie gave a sigh of gratitude at the sight of the twin beds. She was tired; time zone changes and just about everything was wearing her down. Especially the feeling she had been having for the past week.  
  
She at first ignored it and as the days went by the more urgent the feeling became. The feeling always made her think of Treegap and her time with the Tucks. That's when she ran for the calendar in the kitchen and started counting the years, and with a start she realized that it was going to the a decade in three in a half days.  
  
She remembered Jesse telling her that they came back to Treegap every ten years just to see how it was progressing and to see their parents. She then ran into her daughter's room and proceeded to tell her that she was to call into work and say that she wouldn't be able to come in for a few days. Of course Mae wasn't too happy about that being as she had woken her up at 3:41 in the morning.  
  
Now the feeling was so strong, she wondered if it was going to let her get any sleep, the few hours and minutes that she caught didn't make up for almost a week of insomnia. She headed for the closest bed and sighed with relief as she relished the feeling of a soft mattress and pillow.  
  
" Momma, I gonna use the phone." She saw the tired nod that her mother gave her and picked up the phone a dialed the numbers she knew by heart.  
  
***  
  
Winnie waited for the doctor to finish talking to her mother; she could hear him explaining that her daughter might be more comfortable talking about herself without her mother hovering in the background.  
  
Even though her and her mother talked a little more openly with each other and she didn't quite treat her as a child her mother was still a control freak. Especially since two months had past since she had last seen Jesse Tuck.  
  
The doctor came back in and gave her a smile. She liked him immediately; he had the Santa Clause look about him. That and she had known him since she was born, he helped deliver her.  
  
He checked her for any sickness and any bodily harm, that might have lasted and on a whim he checked her stomach and at the time she thought it was funny that he was looking for stomach viruses that way. He had warned her that he was going to check her inside and out and she didn't know what that meant at the time but when he called in a nurse she thought she was gonna die when she explained what he was gonna do.  
  
It would be an hour later when he was finished. He looked up at her, his face grave. " Winnie I'm going to ask you some personal questions and I need you to answer me as truthful as possible." Winnie got a sinking sensation in her stomach.  
  
Dr. Rose, Winnie always giggled at that name and half the time she expected him to be waving a parasol with that kind of name, he asked her she had gotten her period yet, that question sent her face flaming red. He knew she did, her mother took her to him so that he could explain everything about it. He then asked her if she had it anytime in the last two months and it took her a few minutes to remember. She said she hadn't.  
  
He then asked her " Winnie, do you know where babies come from?" She nodded her head yes. In a rebellious act against her parents she made friends with some of the servants and when her parents went away on business or to a party she would visit them and they always talked candid and she was even witness to a birth once.  
  
He looked skeptical on that part and asked her where and if she could show him on a diagram of the female reproductive system. She showed him and he nodded his approval. Then he asked " Winnie, do you know how babies are made?"  
  
This time she took her time nodding her head. Her blue eyes round like plates. He then took a deep breath. " Do you know what the act is?" The doctor knew that it was the same question just rephrased. He got the same answer. " Did you participate willing in this act?" He saw her head whip up at that question.  
  
" Do you mean did he force me into that act. No. In fact he told me I could say no at any time but I didn't want it to stop." She admitted with blush. The doctor nodded in understanding. He and his wife may have been married thirty years but he still liked the ' act' as they were calling it.  
  
Then she stopped him cold when she asked, " I'm going to have a child aren't I?" He looked at her and he studied her. Her face disbelief but her eyes held something. And with a start it was happiness and anxiety and fear.  
  
The only time he had seen happiness in the eyes of an expecting mother was when she was married and they were trying. In his clinic in a city a few miles from here, he got a few streetwalkers or loose women when they realized that they were going to have a baby despair would be in their eyes.  
  
Some would take drastic measure with herbs or take to the doctors in the back ally ways or would ask around for a couple that couldn't have babies if they would like to buy hers. Or the ones that truly broke his heart where the woman thought that they had no choice and took their own life.  
  
He found this a change. He had expected her to be in despair as well, but she surprised him. And that for some reason filled him with relief and unnerved him at the same time. He stood up and looked directly at her. The rest of the visit was a blur and all day back at the house she could hear her mother crying and her father trying to console her.  
  
That night she went down to the bar that was in the house and found her grandfather's flask and snuck out of the house. She sat down by the spring and played with the water. The first time she came her she made the decision not to drink the water, her mind agreeing with Tuck. Now she sat here again. Only this time with a purpose and a reason.  
  
When she turned eighteen she was going to drink the water, she would have wanted to be older but Jesse was forever at 17. She had to let Jesse know that he was going to have a child and that she still loved him. She reached over and put the flask in the water and pulled it out and eyed the opening. Satisfied that it was the top she closed it and put it into the pockets of her skirts.  
  
***  
  
" All right, I love you too. Bye." Winnie watched as she hung up the phone. " How are they?" Mae shook her head in exasperation. " Arwen's fine, having trouble with her latest boyfriend. Apparently he wants her to ship off her kids to boarding school in Switzerland. She's taking him out to dinner to break up with him tonight. Galadriel found out she made partner at her firm and her and her husband are expecting their third. And Haldir is getting divorced from his fourth wife. Why he wants to get married all the time is beyond me."  
  
Winnie shook her head in amusement. " I still can't believe that you named your kids after character from a book." Mae gave her mother a look. " No just any book mother, its Lord of the Rings. It's a classic."  
  
Her mother gave a chuckle. "I'm beginning to regret reading you that book." Winnie had read her that book when Mae's first husband died from a boating accident in the early 60's and she refused to get out of bed for a week. The only thing that finally did, was when the doctor told her she was excepting her first.  
  
As Mae wiggled under the covers and spoke as she turned out the lamp. " And besides, I loved Arwen's name and had planned on naming her that. The other two, well we were hippies at the time and I wanted them to have 'far- out' names."  
  
All was quite for a few seconds before Winnie bust out laughing. And soon Mae followed.  
  
***  
  
Well, I hope it was good. And Dracosweetie, I hope I lived up to your expectations. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summery: Winnie and Mae go back to Treegap.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own a blessed thing except for the daughter. I made her up.  
  
***  
  
Winnie was sleeping when she kept hearing an annoying beeping sound. At first she thought it was her cell phone but she then remembered that she had turned it off. She then thought that maybe it was her watch but it was too loud and aggressive for a watch. She almost got the last thought right but her daughter interrupted her.  
  
"Turn that dam alarm clock off or I'll kill it." Came the pouting voice of Mae from under her covers. It still took a few seconds for her words to process. She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face, "Alarm clock. Right, that's ringing."  
  
Winnie had taken a deep breath and was getting ready to get up and go to the bathroom when she noticed her daughter throw off her covers and practically screech 'Bathroom!' Winnie crossed her arms over her chest and muttered the word cheat under her breath.  
  
Thirty-three minutes later Mae was shaking her wake, which woke her up with a start because she thought she had been awake and had no memory of falling a sleep. "Sorry." She said as she rubbed the heel of her hands against her eyes and then shook her head trying to clear it of all the cobwebs.  
  
"Why am I so sleepy?" She whined. "Jet lag." Mae said matter of factly. Winnie watched as her daughter braided her long brown hair into two braids and muttered "Damn jet lag." As she made her way to the bathroom with her bag.  
  
***  
  
Forty minutes later for Winnie and an all together another hour for both of them to really get ready, they were out the door at eleven forty five and on their way to breakfast and hopefully Cappachinos, and if they didn't have those, bittersweet coffee.  
  
They made their way to a small breakfast café and saw that they didn't have Cappachinos but they did have Starbucks farapachinos. Winnie was cutting into her French toast when she stopped to look at Mae.  
  
And she shook her head as she watched her daughter piled on the syrup, her pancakes looked like they were drowning. "Why do you order those when you know they give you a headache." Mae shrugged her shoulders. " They same reason you don't quit eating chocolate when you know it makes you break out." Winnie nodded in defeat, it was too much of a good thing to give up. Which was why she switched to white chocolate. More sweeter.  
  
***  
  
Thirty minutes later they got back into their rented car and Winnie could feel her hands start to sweat as she held on to the steering wheel. They were on their way to see the area where she had grown up and where she had once lived.  
  
Mae looked over and noticed that her mother's hands where shaking. She leaned over and did something that she hadn't done since she was twelve; she kissed her mother's cheek and said, "I love you Mommy." She hadn't called her mommy since she was seven.  
  
She watched as her mother smiled in her direction and that the shaking in her hands leveled off and she tightened her hold on the wheel.  
  
***  
  
They parked a few feet away from the house and made their way into the woods. Mae looked up in awe as she passed all the old and new trees and all the flowers that littered the floor and watched as butterflies played tag with one another.  
  
"Where are we going?" she asked Winnie as they made their way, it felt like they were just going in circles. Winnie looked over her shoulder at her. "To my grave." Mae nodded her head. To anyone else that would have sounded creepy. Okay it still sounded creepy but she understood what her mother was saying.  
  
They were a few feet away from where the grave marker was when Winnie tripped. " You okay?" Mae asked as she helped her mother stand up again. "Yeah, just tripped over my shoe lace," she pointed at it and noticed that it had gotten caught on a broken tree that looked like it had been struck by lightening, " You go on a head, it should be right around that corner. I'm gonna double knot my shoes."  
  
She gave her mother a smile and took off around the corner. She made her way by pushing away bushes and absently reminded her self that if they ever came out here again to bring a can of bug spray.  
  
She had made her way through when a mosquito decided to bite her face and without thinking, she slapped herself and she let out a yelp of pain. "Damn it!" she cried as she stomped her feet and was about to say something more when she saw someone standing near her mothers grave.  
  
She stared in shock and surprise at the young man. He had shaggy brown hair and blue eyes and leather jacket and she knew exactly who he is.  
  
***  
  
"Who are you?" He asked as he watched the girl in front of him. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was familiar in a way. And he watched as she looked in him over, and not in the way a chick looks at him every now and then as a new conquest but more like she couldn't believe that he was here.  
  
All of a sudden he heard the girl started yelling for her mother. Jesse put his hands up and spoke quickly. "No I'm not gonna hurt you."  
  
***  
  
It took a few seconds for what he said to sink in. But she still couldn't get passed the part that she finally standing face to face with her father. And before she knew what she was doing she yelling for her mother. "Momma!" and she heard her father saying he wasn't gonna hurt her.  
  
But everything turned quite when Winnie came running through the bushes. "Mae!? Mae, what's wrong." Winnie stared at Jesse, Jesse stared at Winnie and Mae stared back and forth at them.  
  
Finally Mae spoke after a minute. "Um, Dad's here." Jesse's head whipped around to look at Mae and said rather loudly. "Dad?"  
  
***  
  
Well, I hope that was okay. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 7  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: I only own the daughter 'cause I made her up**

* * *

Winnie looked at Jesse and then at her daughter. This wasn't how she imagined breaking the news to him. She had hoped to find him first, talk to him for a while break into the news that he was a daddy, had been for quite some while, very gently.  
  
Yeah, fate was having fun at her expense. Instead she walked over to her daughter and grabbed her hand at the same time hissing "Mae!". Her daughter looked at her, and shrugged her shoulders. "What? It's not like he wouldn't have found out later."  
  
Jesse was still staring at from his understanding, his daughter, and the girl he loved for almost a century. He would have to be blind not to notice the resemblance between the two girls, he would have figured them for sisters if he had 't been called dad and Winnie mom.  
  
But he noticed that she had both of her parents blue eyes and his lips that he could see. He was caught off guard when he saw Mae stare straight into his eyes. Hers seemed to be saying 'Hurt my mother and I'll break your legs."  
  
Mae untangled her fingers from her mother's bone crushing grip and patted her shoulder. "I'm gonna go stand somewhere over there while you two talk things out." And both her parents watched as she walked off into the clearing.

* * *

Jesse and Winnie looked at each other awkwardly. He fidgeted by bouncing on the balls of his feet and she by playing with a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail.  
  
He cleared his throat and watched as her eyes found their way to his face. "So, I'm...I'm a, uh, father?" He questioned as he looked over at Mae who was presently yelling a tree root for tripping her. He briefly wondered if she was what you called 'special'.  
  
Winnie nodded her head. "And a, uh, grandfather."   
  
If it were possible his eyes got even huger than before. Winnie had to fight a smile that wanted to break out and let him continue trying de- fogging his brain as he thought about being a father and grandfather.  
  
She looked him over. His hair was still the same as it was the last time she saw him. He looked the same and yet not at the same time. The leather jacket she liked very much. But he also seemed to have an air about him that suggests that he knew more than most people his age.  
  
Which was true considering the real age he told her last time.

* * *

While Jesse tried to de-fog his brain, he let his eyes make an inventory of Winnie. She looked so different. She looked a little older, college kid like. Her hair was no longer the same length it had once been, it was now shoulder length.  
  
"So why did you put up a tombstone?" He asked. He really wanted an answer. When he had first set eyes on it, he felt his heart stop and the entire air whoosh out of his lungs. He felt like his legs hadn't been able to support him anymore.  
  
She cast a quick look at the stone surrounded by flowers. "Oh, um, that was my parents idea. They said that if I put up a stone that I would be officially dead and I could start a new life over with a new name without breaking any laws. Which I don't get." She said as she shrugged her shoulders.  
  
He looked over the stone again and noticed the date. "Why did you wait so long for you to 'die'?" he gave a puzzled look at her.  
  
Winnie threw a hand over her mouth and gave a giggle. "I had forgotten that I had commissioned one a couple of years back and the company that I bought if from were cleaning out their store and they came across it. So I made up a story saying that she just passed away two days ago and thank you very much for finding it."  
  
Winnie opened her mouth to say more but were interrupted by Mae, "Mom!!"  
  
Both of them turned and watched as their daughter came out of the woods clearing, an annoyed expression on her face.  
  
Winnie rushed up to her, concern on her face as she reached her daughter. "What? What is it? What's wrong?"  
  
"This butt-munch won't put down the gun. And he won't let me talk to tell him who I am." She said sourly as she jabbed a thumb in the direction behind her.  
  
As Jesse walked forward he heard Winnie asking Mae "Butt-munch? What are you six?"  
  
He gave a smile at her comment and at the person that was holding the old time gun. "Miles, put the gun down."  
  
Mae and Winnie watched as Miles walked out of the clearing and lowered but didn't put down the gun. "Jesse." He said as he nodded his head in greeting.  
  
"You know this girl." He said as he pointed the gun in Mae's direction. Mae barley controlled the impulse to stick her tongue out at him.  
  
"Yeah, I do and you know her mother." Miles looked quickly and saw Winnie. "You." Winnie narrowed her eyes. "Yes, me. Nice to see you again too." She shot back her tone just a little hurt. She figured after all this time that he might have warmed up to her and if not her then the thought of her. Guess not.  
  
"She's your daughter?" Winnie nodded and then shared a mischievous smile with her daughter. "Yes, she's my daughter....and your niece."  
  
This time the gun was dropped as he looked back and fourth between Jesse and Winnie. He cast an angry glare in Jesse direction. "Ma and Tuck aren't gonna be happy with you." He told him a controlled voice.  
  
Jesse could tell that Miles didn't know whether to be shocked or angry or happy or a whole lot of emotions that he hadn't felt in along time.  
  
"Are they with you? Tuck and Ma Tuck?" Winnie asked. Miles shook his head yes. He had left the family at a hotel while he went to check on the spring and that's when he found Mae reaching for it.  
  
"I left them at a hotel in town." Winnie and Mae jumped up and down and asked which one and Miles told them.  
  
"Good I can't wait for them to meet their granddaughter and then to introduce them to their great grandkids." She called over her shoulder as she and Mae headed to their car and to the hotel that hosted the rest of their family.

* * *

**The End.  
  
Well let me know if you hate the end and I'll try to fix it to were I think you might like it. Or you could give me ideas and I could use them.  
  
Any way I hope you liked it.**


End file.
